Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett [278]
‘I should stay,’ Gelis said.
‘No. Go to the Duchess. You have Manoli. Take Clémence: apart from Jodi, it would be good for you both. And if you do meet Hearty James, suggest just whom he might send to the Tyrol. I doubt,’ said Kathi, ‘if David would go, but it does me good just to think of our Eleanor and that little peacock expecting to charm her.’
They parted presently on the same bracing note, after Gelis had stolen into the children’s room to smile at Margaret and the baby. At least, Kathi had these. Meanwhile it was a fact, not referred to by either, that Kathi’s young lover had gone, while the father of Gelis’s son was alive and perhaps, at last, on his way home.
DISREGARDING THE UNTIMELY COLD of that autumn, the Duke of Burgundy’s English wife dragged her great entourage of ladies, noblemen, soldiers, officials and servants across the fast-congealing northern reaches of the Low Countries to raise an army for her husband’s conquest of Lorraine. As November descended, with its short days and long bitter nights, the Duchess traversed river ferries and sailed over gulfs, pausing to harangue the townspeople of Malines, Geertruidenberg, Dordrecht and Rotterdam, and passing magisterial nights in Leiden and Delft, Gouda and ’s-Gravenhage.
Throughout it all, Gelis felt exhausted, but safe. She was well accustomed by now to the Duchess, whose marriage, as long as her own, had proved fruitless and made no pretence of being close. It had been created for reasons of state, to link the English King’s sister to Burgundy; and Margaret of York, intelligent, well-read, energetic, had more than fulfilled her part of the bargain. The Duke’s daughter had been loved, these eight years, as her own.
As for her van Borselen relatives, Gelis gritted her teeth and was polite. At least she knew they would strain every nerve to protect her. A few years ago, Jodi had nearly died on a visit to Veere, and Robin had been slighted. On this journey, she and Jodi were in the care of Wolfaert himself and his household, always at hand, always grimly dutiful to excess. It was fortunate that Clémence was here, briskly prepared for the moments when Jodi grew tired of exhibiting his straight back and desirable horsemanship, and simply wanted to sleep, or complain, or play games. He was not quite a page, yet.
At night, they slept in one room, the three of them and their young serving staff, but no one ever stayed awake for long, except Gelis van Borselen, lying straight under her coverlet, her hair brushed to her waist, her eyes closed, her hands crossed on the shift at her thighs. So she awaited the moment when Nicholas, too, would find privacy and, pushing aside his dish and his cup, would reach into his purse, and take something out — what? A pebble? A ring? — and, allowing it to drop from its cord, would address his unspoken question. Where is she now? Here? Or there? Then would come the pang, and her heart would start to thud.
Once, she had strung a pebble herself and tried to use it, but nothing had happened. Pretending a casual interest, she had engaged Dr Andreas in conversation, but to no avail. Physicians who carelessly predict the demise of rulers form a dislike, thereafter, of astrological questions. So she could not tell where Nicholas was: if he were locked by the winter in Russia, or travelling home. She did not know if he was alone. It was her guess, because of the messages, that no one was with him: that he was racing towards her, perhaps on this very route. He knew about David de Salmeton, but had not been deterred by her letter — perhaps because he knew more of the danger than she did. She had been wise to bring Jodi here, into the paramount security surrounding the Duchess. And although she would not admit it, she had been driven to come for another reason, for Nicholas knew where she was, and she was travelling towards him.
Lying there, her heart hammering still, she allowed herself at last to wonder what he was like now, this calm, clever, far-travelled man, still young, who had fathered her son, but